BICOM

Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today on the final leg of their Middle East tour.

Though Israel is headed for new elections following last night’s vote to dissolve the Knesset, a US State Department official told Kan News that the administration still intends to hold the economic conference in Bahrain as planned. The official added that the US peace plan would be made public at the right time, when it had the best possible chance of success. The Israeli election is expected to take place on 17 September.

Kushner, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser, and Greenblatt, the President’s special representative for international negotiations visited Morocco and Jordan earlier this week. They will discuss with Netanyahu the US plan for Israeli-Palestinian talks and the ‘Peace to Prosperity’ economic workshop scheduled to take place in Bahrain on 25-26 June.

Yesterday, Kushner and Greenblatt met with Jordan’s King Abdullah. Following the meeting, the Jordanian Royal Court issued a statement, saying that the meeting: “Covered the latest regional developments, especially efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” The statement said Abdullah: “Stressed the need to step up all efforts to achieve comprehensive and lasting peace on the basis of the two-state solution, guaranteeing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side with Israel in peace and security, in accordance with international law and relevant UN resolutions.”

Jordan has not said whether it will attend the Bahrain economic conference. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, along with host Bahrain all plan to be there but the Palestinian Authority, China and Russia have said they will not attend.

The White House announced yesterday that the US, Russia and Israel will meet in Israel next month to ‘discuss regional security issues’. A statement from the White House said: “In June, United States National Security Adviser Ambassador John Bolton, Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, and Russian Secretary of the Security Council Nikolay Patrushev will meet in Jerusalem, Israel, to discuss regional security issues.” This follows a meeting between Ben-Shabbat and Bolton in Washington last month in which the two discussed Iran and ‘other destabilising actors’ according to a senior US administration official.